


Time and Hearts (Will Wear Us Thin)

by tambuli



Series: surviving love [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 5 + 1, 5 Things, Angst, Bad Parenting, Character Death, F/M, Fjord and Jester are married and it is not happy, Fjord is in love with Caleb and Caleb does not love him back at all, I repeat: this is NOT HAPPY., M/M, Not Happy, Unhappy Ending, Unhappy marriage, Unrequited Love, Wedding, every combination of unrequited widofjorester :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 02:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19347688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tambuli/pseuds/tambuli
Summary: “What’s your favorite color, Daddy?” Gwen asks, brow furrowed and considering her drawing fiercely. Fjord laughs, and says, “Blue.”“Oh? Like Mama?”Fjord nearly chokes on his stolen lemonade.“Of course, my little bubble,” he says, smiling. “Exactly like Mama.”Or: Five times Fjord lied, and the single time he told the truth.





	Time and Hearts (Will Wear Us Thin)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grandfatherclock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandfatherclock/gifts), [smokeandjollyranchers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokeandjollyranchers/gifts).



> This is a sequel--or perhaps a co-quel? to [In This Sea of Lovers Without Ships](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18958732). I realize you, dear reader, may have clicked upon this looking for Widofjord, and that Widojest may be a NOTP for you. While you can probably read this without reading In This Sea beforehand, you'll miss a lot of context. 
> 
> As for the Widojests who came here for a sequel--well. Here's the other side of that love triangle.

**_One._ **

Fjord’s packing up again, another trading trip, a month long this time. It’s the longest he’s ever dared book since he got married, and he’s honestly surprised Jester hasn’t protested it. In the early days of their marriage, Jester had pouted when he took week-long voyages, had sent him daily messages at night, and, according to the wharf master, had waited at the docks since sunrise the day he said he would be coming into port.

But this time his lovely wife says nothing, just stands there in her white lace dress and watches him fold the clothes strewn across their marital bed and stow them in his pack. 

“You know,” she says, “I can lend you the haversack, if you want.”

Fjord pauses.

The bright pink haversack stays by the door of their home in Nicodranas, ready to be snatched up at a moment’s notice just in case something happens. It’s been years since the Mighty Nein had been adventurers, since the Empire and its allies were at war with the Kryn Dynasty, but all of them still remember the days of fleeing, of running, of standing and fighting and _killing_. Fjord still remembers the tang of saltwater on his tongue as he raised his hand and brought a crashing wave upon the pursuing vollstreckers. Fjord still remembers summoning Barlgura and commanding him, _Destroy._

(He wonders if Jester dreams of serrated lollipops with chunks of flesh caught in the edges. He wonders if Caduceus remembers blood up to his elbows, glowing so bright it almost hurt to look at, channeling divinity so fiercely it was a beacon of hope. He wonders if Caleb—

He always wonders about Caleb.)

“Thank you, Jessie,” he says, and she lights up. “But I’d feel better if you had it. What if something happens? That’s where your axe and shield are.”

Jester huffs. “Don’t be _silly_ , Fjord. I’ve got my spiritual weapon, you know!” A single finger raises, and the outline, a ghostly silhouette, of a jagged lollipop with a ragged blood-red ribbon, appears behind her. “And even if anyone got to me, and I didn’t kill them, you would rescue me, of course!”

“Of course,” he agrees.

“That would be an adventure, wouldn’t it?” Jester muses, bright-eyed. “I kind of miss adventuring sometimes. I know you do too, and that’s why you’re away all the time.”

Guilt pierces his chest, sharp like a dagger. “Jester, I—”

“It’s okay,” she says, smiling, and oh, she’s lovely, this wife of his. This wife he doesn’t deserve. “I understand. I’ve got the Traveler with me always, but I don’t think your snaddy would like, hang out with you when you’re lonely.”

“ _Jester_ ,” he says, pained.

Fjord flashes back to a night on the run, huddled in Caleb’s bubble, trading witticisms to keep morale up. He can’t remember who brought it up first, it might have been Beau: “You know what? Fjord’s a sugar baby. He like, gets all these cool powers, and in exchange he has to serve Uk’otoa, right?”

“I’m not serving him,” Fjord had protested.

“Uk’otoa’s a sugar daddy,” someone had snickered. Possibly Jester, probably Nott. “A snake sugar daddy.”

Caleb had looked up. Fjord remembers this, in a way he doesn’t remember the rest of the night. Caleb had looked up, blue eyes sparkling with mirth and mischief, and said, “A _snaddy_ , if you will.”

The rest of the Mighty Nein howled with laughter, and ever after, Uk’otoa had been named _snaddy._

“ _Fjord,_ ” Jester parrots back at him, violet eyes bright with laughter. If he pretends hard enough, they’re almost the right shade of blue. “It’s okay! You’re an adventurer. You’d get bored here in Nicodranas.”

“I don’t like leaving you lonely,” Fjord says.

“I’m not, not really,” Jester smiles. “You miss the life! I miss Beau and Yasha and Nott and Caduceus and Caleb like, _aaaallllll_ the time, too. I kind of miss Beau’s snoring, even! Who do you miss the most, Fjord?”

“I don’t know. All of them, I guess?” Fjord says, smiling as truthfully as he can. It’s very truthful, even as the lie passes his lips.

(His heart slams against his chest, _liar, liar, liar._ )

“Come onnnn, tell meeeeee.”

“Fine,” he relents. “I guess Beau? My first mate right now isn’t as good as she is.”

( _Liar, liar._ When the storms come and the sails rip, it’s not Beau he looks for. It’s not her steady shoulder and her disdain and her common sense. It’s a man and a cat and a spell book. It’s a man and blue eyes and red hair, standing in the rain, face tipped up. _This is the best bath I’ve had in a while_ , he says wryly.)

“I miss Beau,” Jester sighs, flopping down dramatically on the bed. “Sometimes I want to join her and Yasha! But then who would wait for you here?”

Guilt, again. It’s a sword in the gut this time. “Jester, if you want to go—”

“Don’t be _silly_ ,” Jester says again, “it’s romantic! The beautiful wife, standing at the docks, sending wishes and kisses into the wind! The handsome husband, standing at the wheel, steering his way away from her, but he always comes back in the end. Right?”

“Right,” he says, and kisses her cheek. “You take care of yourself now, all right Jester? I’ll be back in a month.”

“I love you,” Jester says.

“I love you too,” Fjord says, and this is not a lie. He does love her, Jester, his dear friend, his wife. She’s ample and lush and lovely, soft and giving and artless in her love, thoughtless in her kindness. She might be the best person he’s ever known. Certainly he doesn’t deserve her.

“Goodbye,” he says, and he goes.

The sea is as the sea ever is: blue, and changeable, and stormy and calm and blue, blue, blue, almost the right shade of blue, never the right shade of blue. Fjord busies himself with knots and cargo, talks to Orly about maybe finding a better, faster shipping route. He alternates between pushing away the memory of Caleb and wallowing in it. One day he can’t face the deck of the ship, can’t bear the blueness; another day he’s down in the captain’s room, staring at maps and routes and trying to remember what Caleb’s careful notes had looked like. Simple, economical print, pointing out the average speed they would be going without magical assistance, versus the speed they would be going if Fjord and Jester and Caduceus all worked together to control water.

Fjord never uses control water to speed up his trips. He never wants to come back to shore.

He’s been on the sea for two weeks and change when he gets the message, _Fjord, come home, I have news! Oh, I want to tell you, but it’s a surprise! It’s so good! Come home!_  But he can’t turn around and just go back to Nicodranas, he’s got cargo to unload and gold to collect, he can’t afford to lose the business. So he says _I’ll be back in two weeks, can you hold it until then?_

He’s back in two weeks and he sees her, glowing in happiness and love: _So I was with Caleb in Rosohna, right?_ He barely has time to feel a pang, for his heart to clench, before she goes on blithely, _and then I started feeling sick and we went to a physician and oh! It’s so awesome, Fjord! I’m pregnant!_

Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.

He’s going to be a _father._

He’s in shock for a moment, horror and pain and fear twisting in his chest. Then he remembers his role and he catches her up and spins her around and says, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” kisses her cheeks and her neck and her dress over her stomach, _pregnant pregnant pregnant_ , like a death knoll, a tolling bell: _This is your life now._

 _Father,_ he thinks, and _oh, please, let me be a good one, let me be a good one, please, please, please._

**

 

**_Two._ **

Guinevere is so _small_ , and _light_ , and _tiny,_ and **_perfect._**

He holds her in awe, this little beautiful girl, his child, Jester’s and his. She blinks, and her eyes are green. Not his color or Jester’s, just her own, this precious child, the most important thing he’s ever held. He’s held the keys to unchaining a god in his hands and it was nothing to this miracle in his arms.

Caleb and Nott come up to them, hands tangled together, just like they used to when they were new to the Mighty Nein. In any other circumstance his heart would ache at the affection between Caleb and Nott, the way Nott can just sidle up to Caleb and take his hand in hers. As if it were that simple. As if crossing the gulf between all Fjord has ever wanted and all he can never have was _easy._

In any other circumstance, he would ache to hold Caleb’s hand. In this one, he holds his daughter, and he can’t imagine ever letting go.

“She’s a beautiful child, Fjord,” Caleb says.

“She is,” Fjord says, and there’s awe in his voice. He lets it. He’s spoken to a literal god, faced down gods in battle, and he never paid them the reverence he does to the child he holds. “I didn’t think—I didn’t think I could ever have this. She’s.”

“She’s a miracle,” Caleb says, and there’s awe in his voice too. There should be. There should be shrines to this child, how can she be _his_? How can something so perfect come from a nobody like Fjord?

Fjord, a half-orc orphan, who never knew his parents; Fjord, who was too small for real orcs and too orcish for regular society. Fjord who doesn’t have a last name to give this girl. She can’t be his. She isn’t his. Maybe all the perfection in her came from Jester, because surely nothing of this miracle can have come from _him._

“She is,” he says. “A miracle. A little miracle. I can’t believe someone this perfect is _in my life._ ”

“Ja, I can relate. Congratulations.”

Fjord looks at him then, and he’s struck breathless again. Caleb is beautiful today—he is beautiful every day, but Caleb must have raked his hands through his hair recently; it’s standing on end. It’s wild and tangled and Fjord wants to touch it.

His words are kind and loving and he knows Caleb means every word of them, because Caleb doesn’t lie anymore, not to them, not to the Mighty Nein. They’re _family._

But they’re sad and clipped also, and Fjord remembers graves in Blumenthal and all the guilt that weighs down the man he loves. He remembers standing too many steps behind Caleb as he falls to his knees in front of fresh-dug graves with nothing within them but ash.

 _Astrid, Astrid,_ Caleb had wept. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

Jester had embraced him from behind, and Nott hugged his front, and Beau stood behind him, both hands on his shoulders, steady and strong.

Astrid, the love of the man he loves. Astrid, who lingers in the corners of Caleb’s eyes, the source of the pain and sorrow Fjord sees now.

 All of a sudden he feels the need to reassure Caleb: _my child is your child too—_ no. He can’t think that. He can’t think that.

But he wants his daughter to love Caleb. He wants her to grow up knowing him as her uncle and maybe, maybe, chase away the grief that hangs over Caleb like a cloud.

If anyone can, it’s this child. Guinevere, Gwen, a little miracle.

“Hey. She’s in your life too, you know? You’re her uncle. She’ll grow up loving you.” Fjord is stammering, Fjord doesn’t know what to say—“I know you—you ain’t really.” Words are so difficult right now. “You lost your family real early. What I’m trying to say is. Uh. Let me start over.

“I never had a family,” he says at last. “I never thought I could have this. A daughter. A part of me.”

“And a wife,” Nott says.

“And a wife,” Fjord agrees. He looks at Gwen and he loves Jester. He looks at Gwen and he sees the shape of his wife in her, and he loves his wife fiercely, because she’s in Gwen and Gwen is in her and how can he not?

“I didn’t think I could be this blessed, you know? I didn’t think it was possible. You’re a good man, Caleb. And I think you should. You should stop punishing yourself for things that are in the past, you know?”

He doesn’t dare say the words. He doesn’t dare say _your parents_ or _Astrid_. He hopes Caleb can hear it. He hopes Caleb understands what he’s trying to say.

“Let yourself be happy. Find a girl, you know? Or maybe don’t, if that’s not something you, uh. If you want, if you want a, if you want a man.”

Fjord’s heart is slamming against his chest, _if you want a man. If you want a man. If you want a man._

 **_Could_ ** _you want a man? Could you ever have wanted **me**?_

“Or if you don’t want anyone, like Caduceus,” he tacks on hurriedly.

“Fjord, I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

Fjord sucks in a breath. It’s so difficult to talk about this, so difficult to say what’s in his heart without _saying_ what’s in his heart _._ “I want you to be happy, Caleb. If I, a fuckup from the ass end of the Menagerie Coast, a nobody, can have. Can have this, can have a _family_ , so can you.”

Caleb looks at him, and Fjord can’t breathe, can’t look away.

 “That is very kind of you,” he says. “I am grateful for the thought. But Fjord, my friend, I don’t think I am a man built for families.”

**_Bullshit._ **

 “That’s bullshit and you know it,” Fjord says. Caleb, who loves more sincerely and fiercely, if more silently, that anyone he knows, not built for families? Impossible. _Impossible._

He looks at Gwen, _little miracle this is all on you._ He holds her out. “Go on. Hold her.”

“I don’t think—”

“You _never stop_ thinking, Caleb. Just hold her.”

His daughter settles into Caleb’s careful arms, and the breath is punched out of Fjord’s chest.

Because there, settled against Caleb, Fjord suddenly sees all the little bits of _himself_ in his daughter. When she had been in his arms, all he could see was the shape of Jester: the blueness, the shape of the eyes, the slope of the nose. In Caleb’s arms, he sees the parts of Gwen that are his: the forehead, the mouth, the green that peeks through the blue.

Caleb holding Guinevere—looks like Caleb holding his child and Fjord’s. Caleb holding Fjord’s daughter looks like a Caleb who is _Fjord’s husband_ , a horrible impossible perfect fever dream of a life, a delusion, a fantasy. Caleb holding Guinevere is everything Fjord ever wanted.

“I love her,” Caleb says, and in Fjord’s delirium he almost thinks, _Of course you do, she’s your child._ But then Caleb says it again, “I love her,” and Fjord snaps back into reality, _he is not mine to keep._

He smiles through the realization. “Not built for families my _ass_.”

“Your ass is flat as a pancake,” Nott says quickly, and wonder of wonders, magic of magics, Fjord will bless Nott every day of his life: Caleb throws his head back and laughs, pure and true and clear. He laughs so hard he loses breath.

Fjord stares at him hungrily, tries to memorize the way he looks now. Fjord doesn’t have Caleb’s perfect memory, but this image he wants, he _needs_ to keep.

“The Mighty Nein is all the family I will ever need,” Caleb says, after he gets his breath back.

“Gwen’s part of us now, too,” Fjord says, _please, love her, she is yours too, like I am yours._

“You had better not be taking her into any fights!” Nott half-shouts.

“No, I’m not a fighter anymore. I’m strictly a respectable merchant man now,” Fjord assures them, and if it’s a little sad he hopes they don’t catch it. “Gwen’s part of the Nein, and the Nein is your family. You’re built for families, Caleb, and you deserve to be happy. _Be happy._ ”

 _Even if it’s not with me_ , he doesn’t say. _Just be happy, even if it’s not with me._

But even to himself the words ring hollow. _I want you to be happy_ : true. _Even if it’s not with me_ : only partially true.

 _Be happy with **me**_ , he wants to beg. _Love my child and love me and marry me, please, marry me._

But there’s Jester and Astrid and promises and all the words that Fjord has never let out from his throat. There’s Jester whom he loves and Astrid whom Caleb loves and the secrets that will never make it out from behind Fjord’s ribcage.

 

**

 

**_Three._ **

Despite everything, despite Gwen and learning to walk and talk and run and sing, Fjord can’t bring himself to give up the merchant business.

He loves the sea. That’s all there really is to it. He grew up with the scent of salt in his lungs and when he was younger his bones ached with the need to sail. He loves his wife and he loves Caleb Widogast and his daughter is the undisputed _love of his life_ , but he loves the sea just as much. The salt in his blood and his bones will forever call him back to the sea.

He does try. He does try to be a good husband, a good father, as much as he can. When he comes back from a voyage he makes sure to have pretty silks and laces, as much cinnamon as Jester could ever want, oils and paints for both his wife and his daughter, and lemons. Crates and crates of lemons, for both himself and his daughter, who inherited his passion for citrus.

And, it seems, his adoration for Caleb Widogast.

Today, it is all his daughter can keep from vibrating out of her skin. She is ridiculously excited for her yearly summer trip to visit Uncle Caleb, Aunt Nott, Uncle Yeza, and Luc in Rosohna—she takes the teleportation circle in a few hours, with Fjord accompanying her. He won’t stay long, just long enough to see his daughter safely in the arms of ~~(the man he wishes was her other father)~~ her Uncle Caleb.

Then Fjord will teleport back to Nicodranas, and he won’t even drop by his own home to say goodbye to his wife; he’ll just grab his backs and board his ship, take another voyage, this one a month long. Just long enough that when he comes back, his little girl will be home as well.

His daughter is the only thing that makes being ashore bearable.

Gwen at six is just as charming, just as impulsive as her mother, forever getting into mischief and getting out of it with a batting of green eyes. Trickster-blessed, certainly, and Fjord keeps an eye on his child just in case a green-cloaked god comes visiting.

Right now, however, Gwen is not in mischief. Instead she is lying stomach down on the living room floor, surrounded by bags of pants and paints and toys; she’s going to come back with twice as many bags, because her uncles and aunt will buy her every toy, every outfit her heart desires. She is sketching intently on a piece of paper.

From what Fjord can make out from his vantage point on the couch, it is a family portrait containing all the Mighty Nein and their families. She is sketching outside in: first, the Xhorhasian side of the family, with Caleb, Nott, Yeza, and Luc; then on the other side, Beau and Yasha, holding hands; then Caduceus, with his siblings squeezed around him in a tinier form, probably to make space. Then in the middle, a hugely-smiling Gwen, arms outstretched, and an outline of her mother and father.

Fjord can’t help but smile.

“Who are you giving that to, my little bubble?” he asks his child.

Gwen looks up, all wide, gap-toothed smile. “Uncle Caleb!”

_Of course._

“You’re not giving one to Aunt Nott?”

“Of course I am, Daddy!” Gwen exclaims, indignant with a touch of _you’re silly, Daddy._ “I’m done with Aunt Nott’s though. Uncle Caleb’s has to be _extra special_.”

“Why?”

“Because Aunt Nott and Uncle Yeza have Luc and me, but Uncle Caleb only has me,” Gwen says matter-of-factly. “So I have to love him _extra hard_ when I’m there, because he doesn’t have a little girl to love him!”

 _Oh, Gwen._ Fjord’s heart hurts. _My little bubble, my little miracle. You could have been. You could have been his._

No, she couldn’t have been, because marrying Caleb would have meant not marrying Jester, and Fjord can’t fathom not marrying Jester, at all. If he had not, he would not have Gwen, and Gwen is—everything to him.

“Does Luc not do a good enough job loving Caleb?” he asks instead.

Gwen wrinkles her nose. “He does _okay_ I guess. But he’s a _boy_. And he’s always busy because he’s training to be an adventurer! It’s all _swords_ with him.”

“But I thought you liked training with Luc?”

“Of _course_ I do. But I have to spend time with Uncle Caleb too! I love him _best_.”

Fjord affects offense in order to hide the very real pain shooting through his chest. “Don’t you love your silly daddy best?”

Gwen pouts. “Daddy, you’re being de-li-be-rate-ly silly. Of course I love you too. And Mama. And Aunt Nott. And Uncle Yeza, and Uncle Caduceus, and Aunt Beau, and Aunt Yasha—”

“All right, all right,” Fjord says, laughing. “But don’t you love your silly daddy best?”

Gwen considers it. “Weeeeeelllllll,” she says, “I see you more than I see Uncle Caleb, but not a _lot_ more. So I don’t know, Daddy. Maybe I love you the same!”

 _Who do you love more, Daddy or Pater?_ he imagines asking his daughter, in a beautiful far-off impossible universe. Behind her, he sees Caleb making faces at him, _don’t ask her to choose!_ He imagines himself making faces right back, _you know she will choose me in a heartbeat._

 _No, she wouldn’t,_ dream-Caleb, impossible-Caleb, says.

_Yes she would._

_Ja, she would,_ impossible-Caleb relents. _Because if I had to choose between me and you, I’d choose you too._

_You sap._

And impossible-Caleb is laughing, and his teeth are flashing, and Fjord is catching him up and kissing him while Gwen gags in the background—

“Daddy!”

“Yes, baby?” He startles out of his reverie.

“Do we still have lemons left?”

“A few, probably.”

“Will you make lemonade _please_ ,” she says, emphasizing her good manners.

Fjord laughs, and kisses the top of her blue hair. “As my princess commands.”

The slicing and juicing of the lemons takes only a moment, and the stirring of water and sugar is over quickly too. He carries the jug of lemonade and a glass into the living room, and pours a glass for his daughter.

“Daddy, you should have gotten another glass,” Gwen scolds, when she notices. “You’re going to steal my lemonade again!”

Fjord affects offense again. “Is my little bubble too old to share a glass with her daddy anymore? I don’t think I have germs…”

“No! It’s just that when I’m not looking you steal my lemonade!”

Fjord laughs, and hands her the glass.

As she draws on, she chatters about what she wants to do during her month-long Rosohna stay—she wants to see Jannik and Yarnball, who are having babies; she wants to climb the Xhortree, Uncle Caleb promised she could once she was big enough, and now she is! She wants to see the queen, who is Uncle Caleb’s second best friend after Aunt Nott (Fjord winces, remembering how Leylas Kryn had looked at Caleb during their last visit); and she wants to find out how Essek Thelyss manages to walk without touching the ground.

Fjord wishes her the best with that; it’s been more or less ten years and he still doesn’t know how Essek does it.

(While she isn’t looking, he steals her glass and drinks her lemonade.)

She’s in the middle of another story when she reaches for a colored pencil and stops.

“What’s your favorite color, Daddy?” Gwen asks, brow furrowed and considering her drawing fiercely. Fjord laughs, and says, “Blue.”

“Oh? Like Mama?”

Fjord nearly chokes on his stolen lemonade.

“Of course, my little bubble,” he says, smiling. “Exactly like Mama.”

 _No, not at all like Mama,_ he wants to say, _Mama is the little sapphire, she’s sapphire blue and she shines. My favorite color is blue like the sea off Nicodranas, blue like the ocean, constantly shifting in the light so it’s never quite right. Look at Uncle Caleb’s eyes and you’ll know what blue I mean—_

But he can’t, he can’t, so instead he watches as his daughter considers the three different shades of blue colored pencil she has, before settling on the one that most matches Jester’s blue.

The one that’s closest to Caleb’s lies ignored.

Because Gwen is six years old and not the most organized of children, when the time comes for her to pack up her art supplies and go to the teleportation circle, she _of course_ doesn’t manage to get all the pencils. Fjord picks up the Caleb-blue pencil, which had rolled under the couch, and prepares to give it to his daughter. _You forgot this one,_ he means to say.

Instead, he tucks it into the pouch on his waist, hiding it from his daughter.

“Let’s go!” she cheers, and they run off to the teleportation circle. In a matter of moments they are falling through space, and then on the hard ground of Rosohna.

“Gwen!” a delighted, high-pitched voice calls out. “Oh, and Fjordy,” Nott adds.

“Good to see you too,” he snarks, smiling at his old friend. Nott embraces his daughter, chattering on and on about how she’s gotten so big, what a big girl she is now, she barely recognized her! while also putting up her middle finger at Fjord.

“Uncle Caleb’s not here, Aunt Nott?” Gwen pouts.

“Work ran long,” Nott makes excuse, “so he asked me to come get you. It should only be about half an hour, did you want to go home  or wait for him here?”

“Home, please,” Gwen decides, “I want to see Jannik and Yarnball! Has Yarnball had the babies yet?”

“Not yet,” Nott said. “What about you, Fjord, you want to stay, say hi to Caleb?”

“I—the ship leaves soon,” Fjord says. “Maybe when I come get Gwen next month?”

“Okay,” Nott says.

_Of course I want to say hi to Caleb. I want to say hi to him in the morning and good night to him at night, I want to be with him every day of my life—_

No. These are not thoughts Fjord is allowed to have.

He smiles at Nott, kisses his daughter, takes the teleportation circle back home. Boards his ship without even saying goodbye to Jester.

It’s not until he’s ensconced in the captain’s room and fumbling for a pen to plot a course with when he finds the blue pencil again.

He stares at it. He should break it. He should break it into half and throw the pieces in the sea, Gwen would never miss it, Caleb had probably already bought her a replacement.

He doesn’t.

All the documents from that particular voyage that required the captain’s signature are signed with blue pencil.

 

**

 

**_Four._ **

Guinevere Lavorre in her wedding outfit is a vision _,_ and Fjord can just about feel his goddamn heart rip out of his ribcage.

Gwen, his little girl, his little bubble, standing up there with Luc Brenatto, promising her heart to him forever. Gwen, little miracle, not so little anymore—Gwen in a billowing white silk shirt and tight black pants, rapier strapped to her side, looking Luc Brenatto in the eye and saying _Loving you is the greatest adventure I’ve ever been on._

Gwen, Guinevere, Gwen Lavorre holding out a deceptively-delicate hand and Luc Brenatto sliding a ring on her finger—Gwen Lavorre turning around and becoming _Guinevere Brenatto._

Jester beside Fjord sniffles, and automatically he puts an arm around her, tugging her close.

“Hey, Jessie,” he says, pulls her in. “Jessie…hey.”

Jester turns around in his embrace, so her back is pressed to his front. “Fjord, my makeup, you’ll smear it” she reprimands tearily, but he can see her wan smile. “I can’t believe—I’m so _happy for her._ ”

“Yeah,” he agrees softly, pressing a kiss to her hair. Blue, still, but silver-streaked now. “Wasn’t it just yesterday she was a baby? When did she grow up?”

“When you weren’t looking,” Jester says quietly. “But then—I was looking too, and I didn’t see it either. One moment she was running around yanking curtains down for wedding dresses and the next thing I know, she’s getting married. And not even in a dress!”

“She what? Curtains? When was this?”

Jester pulls away, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Up front, the Bright Queen, Leylas Kryn, has her hands aloft as she declares the marriage of Gwen Lavorre and Luc Brenatto blessed with the light of the Luxon. “Oh, she would have been—seven, eight, one of the summers she went to Rosohna. She was messing around in the attic, looking for books to bring, and she saw my wedding dress. She immediately wanted to get married so she could have a pretty dress, too.”

“Oh?”

“I told her there wasn’t time to buy her a new dress because she was leaving soon, and she yanked down the curtains and draped it around herself and—” Jester laughs. “She’s always been enterprising. She wore that curtain to the teleportation circle.”

“Did she get married?” Fjord inquires. “Is this Gwen and Luc’s second wedding?” The thought makes him laugh.

“No, it’s Gwen and Luc’s first wedding,” Jester laughs. It’s still a bright laugh, still a tinkle of bells. “I think she married Caleb.”

Fjord freezes.

“Oh?” he says, willing his voice to remain steady.

“Nott told me all about it,” Jester says. “The wedding reception was beautiful. Cinnamon pastries and hot chocolate. Luc was best man, I believe.”

Fjord can’t breathe.

All of a sudden he’s flashing back to a port in—god even knows where, a port city, one in a hundred similar cities. The only thing that made it special was Fjord and Orly wandering the streets, looking for a place that sold good, sail-quality cloth, and Fjord seeing a little halfling girl with red hair, a towel draped over her head, holding the hand of a man who looked like her.

 _“And now, Daddy,”_ he remembers the little halfling girl declaring imperiously, _“you say I do, and I say you may kiss the bride, and then you lift my veil and we live happily ever after!”_

The man obligingly said _I do_ , lifted the towel-veil, and very solemnly pressed his lips to the little girl’s forehead.

Fjord had stood there, watching the little scene, and he and the man caught eyes.

The man had red hair, Fjord remembers that. He’d laughed, and Fjord had laughed, and the man said, “Little girls.”

And Fjord had said, “Yes, I have one of my own.”

And the man had said, “They always want to play wedding. This is the third time this month she’s ‘married’ me. I almost wish she’d play horse again, even though she pulls a little too hard on my hair.”

Then the man said, “I’m not looking forward to the day she marries someone else, though.”

Fjord had smiled, and nodded in an I-know-what-you-mean way, and then Orly had called out, and he’d hurried away, pushing all thoughts of redheaded men and little girls out of his mind. Had focused only one getting the cloth, to get the sail repaired.

Now, though—

Now the memory sears through him, a memory decades old—

Gwen hadn’t play-married her father, Fjord. She’d play-married _Caleb._

 _The man,_ Fjord’s ugly mind said, _who should have been her other father._

 _No,_ he tells that part of his mind. _No._

He looks at Gwen, and just like when she was a child he can see the parts of her that are Jester. The blueness, the shape of the eyes, the slope of the nose—the impish laughter, the resolve and fierceness lurking in Feywild-green eyes. Gwen is Jester’s daughter through-and-through, and if Gwen had been Caleb and Fjord’s child then she wouldn’t have been _Gwen._

He loves Gwen, and because he loves Gwen he loves Jester, and because he loves Gwen he can never, ever think of changing things, of marrying someone who isn’t Jester.

(Someone who’s Caleb.)

“Hey, Jessie,” he says suddenly.

His wife of near-on thirty years looks up at him.

 _Lovely, still_ , he thinks. _Lovely, always._ Jester is softer now than she used to be, more curves where there had once been angles. The blue hair is silvering. The hands once callused from axe-wielding are smooth again; paint under nails where once there’d been blood.

“Yes, Oskar?” Jester says flirtily, batting her eyelashes at him. A laugh startles out of him.

“I love you,” he says, and it’s not a lie.

Jester smiles and nods.

“Thank you,” she says.

“You know that, right?” he says, suddenly needing to make sure she knows. “You’re—I love you. You’re my wife and my dear friend and the mother of my child and—I love you, Jes.” He’s awkward again, stammering—truth has never come easy to Fjord, not really. Not ever.

“Love you too,” she says, smiling, smiling, when is Jester ever not smiling?

She turns back to watch the ceremony, and Fjord thinks the conversation is over. He wraps an arm around her shoulders again, and she leans into him.

“I’m happy for her,” Jester says again, suddenly, apropos of nothing. “I hope her life is—perfect.” She stops, and Fjord knows she’s quirking a smile, even though he can’t see it. “I know, I know life is never perfect, but a mother can want for her child, can’t she?”

“Our lives haven’t been perfect,” Fjord says.

“I know,” Jester says.

“But it was perfect for me,” Fjord says. “Thank you, Jester. Thank you for my child. Thank you for this life.”

Jester nods in his arms.

“You’re welcome.”

Fjord once again presses a kiss to blue hair, eyes fixed on the tiefling bride with lace at her throat, the tiefling bride beaming bright enough to blind. “I wouldn’t change anything at all.”

(On the other side of the aisle, on the groom’s side of the aisle—kind of a stupid decision, given the bride and groom were part of the same family—Caleb Widogast stands, beside Nott and Yeza Brenatto. On the other side of the aisle, Caleb Widogast stands as part of the groom’s family, even as the bride’s father stands there with the bride’s mother and refuses to think, _You should be here, on this side, you should be here, you should be here._ )

 

**

 

**_Five._ **

Fjord doesn’t like using control water anymore, not liking the reminder of what he did to gain it. Nearly unchained a god, and for what? For foolish power. But when he hears that Caleb is gone, Caleb is dead—Jester’s voice resounds in his ears, in his mind: _“ **He’s dead, Caleb is dead. You have to come home. Leave your stupid ocean and come home. Caleb is dead. Caleb is dead. Caleb is—**_ ”

The waves that speed his ship along are storm-level, hurricane-level. A lesser man, a lesser warlock, would have found it impossible to control the waves, would have found it impossible to gentle them as they came into port in Nicodranas. Fjord doesn’t notice any of that. Fjord raises his arms and commands the water, and the water _obeys._

It can’t not. He won’t let it.

He stumbles onto the teleportation circle still wet with seawater and when he falls through space, he falls into Jester’s arms.

He takes one step towards her and then she’s falling into him, or he’s falling onto her, and they’re both sobbing and wailing as they rock together. In this shared grief he feels more connected to his wife than he has in the past twenty-five years.

He holds her and she holds him and they weep together, and she is soft and smells like lavender and home, but it’s not softness and flowers he wants, he wants hard angles and too-skinny arms and the smell of woodsmoke and strange magical components. Caleb is _gone,_ Caleb is gone, how can Caleb be gone?

When was the last time he spoke to Caleb? He can’t remember. It must have been months ago, maybe even years ago. He saw Caleb at Luc and Gwen’s wedding, of course, and they met up during the anniversary of the end of the war, but—it was nothing meaningful, nothing important, just hi-hello-how-have-you-been-how’s-the-business.

 _Booming_ , Fjord had said, and Caleb’s lips had quirked. _Glad to hear it._

_Was there anything you wanted me to bring, next time? Paper and ink, maybe?_

Caleb had laughed. _I have all the ink and paper I need. Leylas supplies me with them._

_Mmm, a queen hmm?_

_I know what you are thinking, and no, it is not like that. Leylas and I are simply very, very dear friends._

He supposes dear friendship is the reason why Leylas Kryn has not left the Xhorhaus since they had put Caleb in the coffin. She stands there, staring at him, at his shell, with depthless grief in her eyes. Her hand is gripping her hair; there is a braid there, but it is not tied back.

He wants to approach. He wants his time with Caleb, too. He wants to stare at the body of the man he loves—loved? Does love end when a person is dead? What tense do you use when someone you love passes away?

“Fifty years,” he whispers to himself, unconsciously. “Fifty years. I don’t think love ends that easy. I don’t think it ends that fast.”

Leylas Kryn looks up at him.

“No,” she says to him, “it doesn’t.”

“Your Majesty, I—”

She steps away from the coffin, gesturing him forward. “I am not the only one who loved him. Look your fill, before he is interred.”

“He was one of my best friends,” Fjord agrees. “I know we were never close, Your Majesty, but as someone who was one of Caleb’s friends too, I give you my condolences.”

She inclines her head. “And I offer you mine.”

She vanishes into the upper floor of the house, leaving Fjord alone with Caleb’s body.

Nott had told him Caleb went quietly, in his sleep. Old age. Nothing to be done. When Luc had discovered his uncle’s body, he had raised the alarm and the clerics came running, but despite clerics being able to snatch people back from poison, bleeding out, curses, they could not do anything about old age.

Age comes for every mortal. Death is everyone’s fate.

He steps forward, peeks into the coffin.

He recoils.

The Caleb in the coffin is—is not the Caleb he knew. The hair is more gray than red, the sea eyes shut forever. There are wrinkles around his face that hadn’t been there fifty years ago; there are laugh lines and crows’ feet and a lifetime of Caleb Widogast growing from the man Fjord had met in Trostenwald.

The Caleb dead in that coffin is not the Caleb that Fjord loved.

Loves. Loved. Loves. Loved. Loves.

Loves, loves, loves.

He doesn’t realize he’s gripping the side of the coffin so hard until pain shoots through his fingers and he realizes he’s splintered the wood.

Then he’s off, off and running, bolting out of the Xhorhaus and running into the street, running and running, the gods only know where to—

 _No. No no nonononononononoNONONONONO_ **N** **̡̫̯̤̖̠̥ͣͩͫ̎ͭ** **O** **̶̴͈̗͍̺̦̪̏** **N** **̢͙̺̗͙̱ͫ͐͆ͧ̈͛̑̇͑** **O** **ͫ̋̿ͦ** **́** **̴̯̖ͤ͟** **N** **͛ͥͧ̒** **́** **̢͉̩͒̕** **O** **͆͗̋̍ͦ͗͑** **̉** **̧̝ͩ** **N** **͚̹̗͍̮̮͓͚̅** **Ó** **̨̨̤̙̳̟̤̯͎̭̱̑͐͐̋** **N** **̶̢͈̪̪̺̊͐̑̓̆ͤͅ** **O** **̈** **̀** **̳̪͔͎̞̳̙̜͐͛͠** **N** **̐̒** **̀** **̧̮̜̌̓̆** **Õ** **̷͎͍͇ͣ** **N** **̛̿͗̂͗͏̘͖͙̰** **O** **̈́̐** **̀** **̹̖͉̼͍̙̍͢͠ͅ** **Ñ** **̧̟͓̯͐̄̈ͭ̚͡** **O** **̡̲͎̭̩ͨ̏ͩ̈́̔̚** **N̉** **̢̞̼̲͓͚̤̻̪̎͑̍̇͢͡** **O** **̺̤͒̔̓ͮ**

He doesn’t realize he’s screaming until he can’t breathe anymore—he doesn’t realize he’s screaming until his throat is raw—he doesn’t realize his screams are not in his normal voice until he hears the aftershocks of his own grief—

—old eldritch sounds he never thought he’d summon again.

Fjord had held the chains that leashed a god. He had cut a god open and watched it bleed. He is not a god, not even a demigod, but he holds a portion of the salt and the strength of the ageless sea.

He is far from the sea, here in the heart of Rosohna—Fjord is far from the sea, but there is salt in his bones and he is never _away_ from it, not really.

He shuts his eyes and casts out his consciousness.

 C̮ͪ̓ͅa͔̱͗l̼̳̼̣̳̔ͮͨͤ̉͒ͅe͉̘̼̓b̳̭͇̜,̲̓̿ͤ ̤͈̟̼̹̝ͦ̆͊ͣ̓́̚ͅw͖̗ͣ̑̇h̫̺̙̺̅̃̊̎ͅe̳̰͂ͦr̻ͦ͌͊ͨ̾ͫ̀e̩̟̻̭̙͚ͫ͂̓ ̞ä͎́͋̌͒̑̄r͓̰̟̜͍ͫͬ͆e̳̲̫ͧ̔͗ ͕̘̹͙̩͖̗̃̄͗̊̔ͣyͧ͑͌̍o͖̥̤̯̹̐ͅu̦͉̯?̟̖̲̤̭̥͙́̓̐ he asks.

No answer.

C̲̥ͫ̑̀ͦ̄̋aͩ̏ḽ̥̺̣̬͉ͧ͋̋̏ͅe̼̘̜̺̺̖͖͗b̹̺̲̪̬̜̐̇̈,̤̦͈͌̋͆̎ͩ̽ ̆͂̒̔w̳̯̠̹͋̔̑͊̈́̐h̟̳e͌rͫͫê̥̣̦̝̜̤̫̅͊ ͕͖̻̩̀ͬâ̠̯̝͈͉̅̚ř͇̰̖̜̬̥́̾ͦ̄̄ͮe̥̲̼̥̼̣ ̩̮̌ͣ̄̏y̜͇̟͙̙o͍͓̺̮̼̲͑́u̼͔̭͉̓?̺ͬͪ͑ͤ͒ ̘̟͗Ī̘̤̝͈̣͔͔̂t͉͕̹̞͓̱̰̄'̞͈̬͍͗͐͂s͚͈̭͈̝̬͔͐͆ͬ ̦̈͆̎̈m͆̆͌͐e̞͔̱͎,̪̣̱̲͒̏ ͕̠͇͚͙̅͂ͧ̐̏͆i̓̉ͬt̩̳̖̫̤'̝̌̌s̼̫̦̉͗͗ͣ̓ ͖͓͓̞̤̬̳F͎̯͕̣͍̩̊̋̌j͌o̥͚̹͓̤ͩ̇̋r̺̖̰d̬̦̦̾ͦ̆͌̀̋̾,͛ ͓ͤͤ̎ͬ͒w̤̞͔̙͈̉̔̀̾̎ͥ͂ͅḥ͖͇͖̱̰̆ͨe͉͙̗̮ͣ͐͌̚r̰̲̘̗̻̟̍ͣͥͥ͆̔ͧe̝͈̺͍͙͙̫̽̏̎̓̋ ̼̪̪ͤͬ̀̿̃ͦa̹͈̼͇̹̺ṛ͈̙̘ȇ̺̫͖͖̩̼͉ͪͧ ̻̘̦̭ͤ̐͑ͦ̓̆y̎̉̆o͍̤͇̰͒ͭu̮̝͇͍̮̖͉͋̏ͪ̅̉,̤̞̱ͦ̎̇̓ͥ̚ ̙͇̯͉̤̻̐͊p̈́͌̍l̦̈́̿ͧ͋̂̚e͎͖̖͓̪̰̰͐̓a̺̠͍ͩͪͮ͋́̓ͥs̱̩̬̽̉͗ͬ̋́̅e̫͔ ̓ͫ̃̔a̘̦̱̠ͭn͈̳̭̩̓̍̋͂̉s̤̼̞ͫͩ̍̅̔w̞̆͗̿̓̇̍̚e̠̘͕̓̆͊ͪͥ͌ͫṟ͔͚̟͓ͯ͐̄̐ ̮̔m̳͕̪͉͔ͯ̇̌ͬ̾̾e̼̺̲̳͇-̹͖̫̎̎͐͂͐-̱̞̏ͅ he tries again, casting his spell out further, pushing out more power—he will scour the planes if he has to, he will scream out his words into every plane of existence—

Č̥̘̗̜̟̰̣̿̾͂͌ͨ͗a̜̼̥̺̻͈̿̄ͦ͂̽͑ͪͅl͎͎͉̪̣͇͓̓̔̓̆e͈͙ͫ̈́̈́ͭͬ͑b̝̼̟̦̥̫͉̅̑̔ͦ̏ ̮̤̙̜͆̄̎ͦͭw̝̄hͩ͆ͮe̯̯͙̘͙͈r̠̖͍̙͈̱̐̏ͤ̇e̯̠͔̳͖ ̮͓̰̦̬̐͛ͤͩ̿ͨ͗ȧ̼̗͎̝͕ͧͅr͉̪̠̝ͫe̝̥̠̎ ̺̈́͊ͮ́ͫ̔͂y̫͂ͯͅo͎͓͈̦͚̝͈͆u̗̼̠͚͊,̰̥͙̱̺͉̎̀͋̑ͅ ͪͮwͧ̋h̜̲̞̜̼̖e͍̮ȓe̲͙̫̒ ͔̙͖̱̻ͫ́̄̿à͋͗͐̍̄̑rͪ̇̆ȅ̘ ̟̱͚̬̦̘ͩ͊ͮ̒y͓̘̮̻͗̂̂̉ͨ́͌o̹̱̜̟̹͛͒͂̓u̝̜̰̠̥ͣͮ̽ͩ̄̈́,͉͕͈̆́ͫͭ̇ͅ ͪ̍w̎h͍̤̯̻̪̍̔e̐͊̾ͯ̿̓r͖͒e̥̹͑̓̉ͅ ̗́a͖̳̯̺̠͊̅ͅr̮̱͚e ̈́̑͐y͚͙͓̎̅͑ͤ͒ͣͫo̩̓͌͗ͭ̀̅û͙͖̜̮̏?̻̼͓̒̏ͫ̐

.Still there is no answer.

 

P̻̻̘͙̱l͎̭̘̘͖̤e̼̱̼̪̞͋̉̚a͎̗̼̳͕͎̞̿ͫs̒ê͙̠̲ͮ̆, he begs. “Please, answer me.”

“He won’t,” someone says quietly from behind him.

He turns, and there is Beau, cloak wrapped tightly around her, watching him with the wrong shade of blue eyes.  Her face is inscrutable.

“Hey,” Fjord says, voice hoarse.

“Hi,” she returns. A pause, then, “He’s gone, Fjord.”

“…I know.” Fjord wants to fall to his knees, but instead he crosses his arms. He’s in the middle of the street, and with a blink he realizes he’s not too far from Caleb’s own little house.  “He’s gone and—I’m here.”

“He’s gone and we’re here,” Beau repeats, and Fjord realizes she’s crying.

“Oh, _Beau_ ,” he says, and then he’s pulling her into his arms, and then Beauregard is sobbing, and he’s sobbing, and they both have something of the sea in them as they mourn Caleb Widogast.

“Fucker,” Beau says, tearily, “Fucker just up and fucking died on us. Fuck. I love him. He was my fucking brother, Fjord. How am I supposed to—how are we supposed to—”

Fjord buries his face into her neck and feels wetness spread over his face. “He was—he was my brother,” he echoes, weakly. “He was—I loved him so much, Beau.”

And it’s all true, and none of it is true, and Fjord holds on to Beau and they grieve, grieve, _grieve._

 

**

 

**_One._ **

Fjord takes more trips out to sea, spends more time on the water than on land. He can’t bear solid ground under his feet anymore, feels more at home in the rocking of the waves than on unmoving floor.

The sea is still the wrong color, but it’s the closest he can get.

But then the news comes and.

He has to go back. There are things and people and loves that tether him to shore.

Like a little boy, a newborn child, a grandson named—what else?—Caleb.

Gwen smiles from the birthing bed, exhausted. Luc hovers nearby, a proud father. Fjord holds his grandson and thinks, _You should be here._

It’s a reflex at this point, it’s—it’s.

It is what it is.

He holds his grandson for a moment, notes the mop of curly brown hair and the tan skin, and when the boy opens his eyes and the color is brown, he...Fjord breathes.

Then he hands his grandson over to Jester, and after a few days he goes back to sea.

This goes on for years and years and years. Fjord barely notices the time slipping past anymore. The only thing there is, is the sun rising and setting and gleaming over the waves.

And then he’s too old, and he’s being shipped, _ha_ , back to dry land—everything is hazy—

“It won’t be long, now,” a female voice whispers. Fjord is…in bed, covers tucked in, and lights dance around the captain’s cabin. For once, the ship isn’t rocking—Fjord struggles to remember. Are they in dry dock right now?

“Will it hurt him, Mama?” another voice asks.

“No, darling, I don’t think so,” the voice from earlier replies.

A hand takes his, and Fjord is still sleepy but he would know that hand anywhere—the rough texture, marked not with weapon calluses but with burn scars, healed and burned and healed again.

“Hey, Caleb,” he whispers.

“Mama, he knows me!”

“Caleb,” he whispers again. He’s so tired, why is he so tired? “Is it my turn with Gwen now?”

“…grandfather?”

“He’s delirious,” another voice, a male one, says. “He’s—I don’t know, hallucinating?”

A low sob.

“Caleb,” Fjord tries again, a little laughter in his voice. “What time is it? You know that at night, she’s _your_ daughter.”

“It’s fine, Dad,” the female voice says, choked with tears. “The sun’s setting. You can sleep, it’s okay.”

Fjord struggles to fully open his eyes. It’s hard. The dancing lights are too bright, and his vision is fuzzy. He blinks, and blinks again, and a tiefling woman swims into view.

She’s leaning over him, tears dripping down her face. Fjord squints at her. She looks like Jester, but she’s not Jester.

“Are you sure?” he asks her. “It feels like…what time is it? Caleb gets her at night, but she’s my responsibility before then…”

“It’s all right. Gwen’s all right, it’s bedtime,” the woman says. “You can go to sleep.”

The hand holding his tightens, and he struggles to look at Caleb, but he can’t. His body is too heavy, lethargic with sleep. Did they fight a storm this afternoon? Everything aches.

“All right, Caleb,” he says, yawning. “I love you.”

A sob tears from the tiefling woman’s throat.

“Kiss Gwen for me,” he murmurs, already drifting back to sleep. “Tell her…Tell her Daddy loves her.”

“She knows,” the tiefling woman whispers. “She knows.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, Dad.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> We will grow old as friends,                                       
> I've promised that before so what's one more  
> In our grey-haired circle, waiting for the end?  
> Time and hearts will wear us thin  
> So which path will you take, 'cause we both know a break  
> Does exactly what it says on the tin
> 
> What the hell would I be, without you  
> [Brave face talk so lightly, hide the truth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8zfHhXfkfM)


End file.
